


Christmas Rollercoaster Physics

by wittyno



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Annie's mom calls, Community Discord Winter Holiday Collection, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gift Exchange, Tears Are Shed, holiday prompt, past emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28285470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wittyno/pseuds/wittyno
Summary: My submission to Community Discord Winter Holiday Collection. The prompt is “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’d all prefer to have a quiet, intimate celebration, just the five of us, without any drama.”Jeff and Annie spend Christmas together. Set right after Abed's uncontrollable Adventure. Gifts are exchanged and tears are shed.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Comments: 18
Kudos: 52
Collections: Community Discord Winter Holiday Collection





	Christmas Rollercoaster Physics

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to the #fan-fic channel on discord. Specifically to Celery, because they gave me for idea of Jeff's gift. This fic is angsty, but it has a fluffy center. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are welcomed.

Jeff put the key in the lock of his apartment and stopped. Dread dripped into his mind. It was too quiet. Annie threatened him with Bublé. So why wasn’t Jeff hearing that second-rate Canadian hack warble on about poor weather? Maybe she wasn’t here yet. He looked down at his watch. No, she should be here by now. Annie was never late. How the hell did he get roped into this? Right, mermaid and a bike chain. 

A couple of days prior the group had gone went around the room, and Jeff has been honest about his plans. 

“Just me and a good bottle of scotch”. Maybe he’d call Britta later if he felt like it. He didn’t tell the group that. Annie gasped and her wide eyes shined with indignation. 

“You’re spending Christmas alone? That’s unacceptable.” She crossed her arms. 

“Annie,” Jeff said, his tone filled to the brim with exasperation. She straightened up, a determined look in her doe eyes. 

“I am not letting you spend Christmas alone.” 

“You’re Jewish,” Jeff said lamely. Deep down, he and everyone but Annie knew that his protests were just for show. 

“So what? I’m still allowed to care about people on Christmas.” 

“Annie, I don’t want you...” Annie cut him off. Jeff was grateful, because he wasn’t sure where that sentence was going. 

“No one should be alone on Christmas.” Her determination hardening. 

“But I enjoy being alone.” Jeff spent most of his adult Christmases by himself. 

“That’s ok every other day of the year. Am I right guys...?” They both looked around, but everyone else cleared out. Annie quickly recovered and went on the offensive. 

“I’m going to be at your apartment at 9 am on the 24th.” Why did Annie have to be an early bird? “I will do all the work. All I need you to do is get a tree,”. Annie looked up at him with her patented Please-Jeff look. God, he had been wrong. She wasn’t becoming dangerous. She’d always been dangerous. 

He sighed. “Fine”. Annie cheered and flounces off. All while pulling out her phone to make notes. 

Later, Annie texted him, that if he didn’t want to help, he should keep clear of his apartment, for which he was grateful. He’d bought the tree a couple of days earlier. Jeff surprised himself with how much care he put into picking out the tree, but Annie was doing most of the work. So it would only be fair for him to hold up his end. When the twenty-fourth came, Jeff got up at 8 am. An ungodly hour, but he knew that if he stayed Annie would make him help, so he got up and drove to the gym.

As he was finishing, a pretty and young woman sidled up to him. Brooke was the new fitness instructor. She laughed at his jokes and didn’t even try to sell him the gym’s new Platinum Gold Membership. Jeff puffed out his chest, buoyed by her interest. Greendale hadn’t sucked all the Winger-charm out of him after all. With Brooke’s number safely stored in his phone, he hit the showers. As he stood in the shower stall, water and guilt washing over him.

Jeff knew there was nothing for him to be guilty about. Why did taking Brooke’s number feel like such a betrayal? He and Annie weren’t together. They’d agreed that their kiss last semester had been a mistake. Annie called him gross, which seemed unfair because she hadn’t thought he was gross when Jeff kissed her back. No, she’d let out a little sigh. A noise which etched itself into his memory forever. Then why wouldn’t the guilt wash down the drain with the rest of the water? 

Jeff got out of the shower, dressed, and walked out the door with a wink to Brooke. He would call her. Maybe… Probably… 

Jeff got into his car and realized he still had hours to kill before Annie was expecting him back in his apartment. A small part of him wanted to drive home and offer Annie help, but Jeff wasn’t sure his self-image could survive that. 

Jeff drove past a mall. Annie told him no gifts, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her blue eyes getting wide and her face flushing with excitement. Without thinking, he pulled into the mall’s parking lot. Then came choosing the store. Jeff strolled by Bath and Body Works. Annie smelled great. He spared Victoria’s Secret the smallest glance. 

Jeff wandered around the whole mall. Clothes were out because Jeff liked the way Annie dressed. No more travel agent. Jeff stood in front of Yankee Candle for a solid half hour. Something complicated candles. What if Annie associated that smell with him and she didn’t like the smell? Jeff couldn’t have Annie not like him. Flowers died and jewelry was cliche. His sheets guy was good, but not even he could rustle something up in 3 hours. Jeff would not get Annie some off-the-rack sheets. Annie deserved better. He thought about a nice bottle of wine, but given her history, it didn’t seem right. 

Jeff was so caught up in thought that he almost missed it. Glinting at him from across the way. How’d he not seen it sooner? Jeff entered the store and made a beeline for the display. The perfect pen shimmered up at him. Black with silver trim. Elegant, just like Annie. Jeff grabbed it without ever looking at the price. It was perfect for Annie, and that’s all that mattered. He strolled up to the cashier, a haughty-looking man wearing a perfectly tailored suit. 

“Is it your anniversary, sir?” The cashier asked the cashier. An imperious man with a heavy german accent. 

“Uh...” The corners of Jeff’s mouth lifted as a balmy warmth crept through his veins. The cashier cleared his throat. 

“Sir, you need to choose an ink.” The confusion must have shown on Jeff’s face because with a small tut the man pointed at an ornate display behind him. It filled the display with what seemed to be every color on the spectrum. Jeff thought about the look of pure determination Annie had worn when ripping off her clothes the last time a pen played a prominent role in their relationship. There was only one choice. 

Now he stood listening at his own apartment door, the pen box neatly tucked under one arm. Fear seeping into his bones. What if Annie had forgotten their plans? Or gotten a better offer? Annie probably didn’t want to waste all her time on him. Jeff shook his head and pushed open his apartment door. 

Jeff’s jaw hit the floor. Annie transformed his apartment into a Christmas Wonderland. The place smelled of turkey and mashed potatoes. A reef with red and gold a ribbon hung over his fireplace. Two bows bespoke with holly sat on his coffee table. Annie had hung gold and silver stars in his windows. On his kitchen counter was a bowl filed with fake snow, on top of which a Santa figurine on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Garland interwoven with silver tinsel silver draped over his tv.

But the tree. It all looked perfect, except for the tree. The tree was where he had left it, stuffed in the corner as if it’d misbehaved. Just as bare as it had been two days ago when Jeff brought it home.

There were two large boxes placed neatly next to one another in front of the tree. The first contained soft white fairy lights. The second box held ornaments. Jeff looked closer. The ornaments weren’t of Santa or his elves, but they were candid pictures of the seven of them. Pierce and Britta arguing. Troy and Abed doing their signature handshake. Shirley and Annie hugging. Him and Annie as debate champions. He looked around,

Annie had been here, but where was she now? He moved to call out her name, but then he saw her sitting on his couch, holding her knees to her chest, tear stains on her cheeks. Jeff’s heart crashed against his chest. He gingerly placed the present on the coffee table and came to tower above her. 

“What’s wrong?” Annie stiffed and squeezed herself tighter.

“Nothing. It’s stupid… I’m being silly.” Unbidden, a memory swam to the surface. Jeff’s tenth birthday party, his parents arguing, a loud crash, and his mom curled on the couch crying. The long-slumbering monster in his chest roared to life. 

“Tell me what happened,” Jeff growled. Annie jumped at the rough sound of his voice. Jeff realized what he must look like. As an apology for scaring her, Jeff sat down next to Annie and put his left arm around her shoulder. The weight of his arm seemed to ease some of her tension.

“For the record, I don’t think you’ve ever been stupid.” That earned him a watery smile. 

“My mom called me today. It’s the first time since I went to rehab and it...” Annie’s head came to rest on his chest, fresh tears soaking his new blue Armani button down. She continued, her voice breaking with every second word.

“The first part of the call went well. She told me, she’d accepted that I had mad a mistake.” Jeff thought that Annie’s standards for a decent conversation were far too low. According to Jeff, any phone call from Annie’s mom that didn’t start with her begging for forgiveness was not good enough. 

“She told me about a boy she met at temple who would “overlook” my mistake. My mom saw the photos Shirley posted on Facebook. She was disappointed that I didn’t want to take Adderall anymore because I was getting far too fat, and how the Adderall kept my weight in check.” Annie sniffled. “She’s not wrong. I looked at the picture.” The uncertain quaver to her voice made Jeff’s heart hurt.

The reawakened monster in his chest grew three sizes and demanded vengeance. Jeff had already started planning a revenge that would smite a god, when he looked down at Annie, afraid what he would find. Jeff hated looking people in the eye. It gave them an unfair advantage, but with Annie eye contact was easier. Her earnest eyes were shimmering with tears. In a moment of ice cold horror, Jeff realized that Annie believed her mother.

Jeff needed to make this ok. But what could he tell her? His dad was dead. It wasn’t like Jeff was winning awards for healthy coping skills. Somehow telling Annie that whenever she thought of her mom to run on the treadmill until she could no longer hear the blood roaring in her ears didn’t seem right.

Jeff lifted Annie’s chin. Her cheeks pinked and heat pricked under his skin. Annie looked at him with the same caring honesty she’d shown him at the Transfer Dance. Those eyes, her understanding, made meeting her gaze easier. It would be easy to just lean down and kiss her. Kiss away the pain her mother was inflicting on her. It took every ounce of Jeff’s self-restraint to not kiss Annie. 

“Annie, you are beautiful. You could wear a trash bag and still be the hottest woman in every room.” Jeff’s gaze grazed Annie’s lips, but he forced himself to look into her eyes “You are caring and sweet. Your mother doesn’t know you, but I do and I like you. The rest of the group knows and likes you. Annie, you’re sweet, caring, and driven. You cry at Disney movies and would do anything for your friends. You’re impressive.”

What felt like moments later Annie’s phone timer rang and she sprang up to turn it off. Jeff silently wished that Annie would just come back to the couch, but she jogged into the kitchen and pulled open his oven. The smell of turkey intensified. Jeff couldn’t help but be in awe. Annie had produced a Christmas meal for champions. Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, roasted parsnip soup. It reminded him of… 

“Christmas at home,” he said more to himself than to Annie, but a mischievous smile crept over her face. Terror scaled his spine.

“Annie, what did you do?”

“Remember when you told me you were screening your mom’s calls?” Yes, he replayed the memory of what came next almost nightly. 

“Vaguely,” he smirked.

“I may have stolen your phone and gotten her number.” Annie looked pleased with herself, but she didn’t know that he was on thin ice with Doreen ever since Jeff had told her about his fake bachelor’s degree. Jeff knew that Doreen would love Annie. That was the problem. Jeff couldn’t have mom glomming onto his friends.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t ask her for baby pictures. Even though I am pretty sure she would have sent them to me. I only asked her to give me the recipes for your favorite Christmas food.” Jeff gave a worried chuckle. 

* * *

After they finished, Annie cleared the table. As she was washing the dishes, Annie caught Jeff smiling at her. She returned his smile. Annie noticed that Jeff rarely made eye contact with people. Whenever Jeff talked, he was invariably looking at his phone, at the ceiling, anywhere but directly at the person he was talking to.

But in these moments Jeff held her gaze. These moments made the rest of the world seem insignificant. In those moments, nothing but them mattered. Invariably, those bubbles would fracture and leave Annie with the cold reality that Jeff wasn’t interested in her. A shameful secret. She mentally shook herself and hurried, putting the rest of the plates away. 

“I know we said no presents, but I couldn’t resist.” He gave her one of his Annie’s smile. Smiles that made her insides turned to jelly. It had taken months for her to decide for the perfect gift for Jeff. He was deceptively hard to buy for.

Annie prided herself on her great gift giving. Everything seemed either too personal or not personal enough. She settled on a little plain wooden box. Inside were little scraps of paper. Over the last three months, every time she had a nice thought about Jeff, she’d written it down on one of these scraps. 

She handed it to him and said, “for a rainy day”.

Jeff stared at her for a long moment.

Time slowed down and fear flooded her belly. He must hate it. It was too personal. Maybe they weren’t that close, and she’d overstepped some unsaid boundary. A second later, Jeff hugged her. Annie froze in shock. Jeff’s arms laced around Annie’s waist, his face buried in her shoulder. Annie, smiling, pressed her cheek against Jeff’s shoulder. Jeff’s cologne filled her nose, bringing with it the memories of fairy lights and a soft summer breeze.

They’d been here before, and Annie knew what came next. Before she could do much of anything, they broke apart. Annie turned away, her cheeks burning at the memory. Annie didn’t catch Jeff’s hand, wiped his face. 

“Thanks,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. 

He thrust his gift at her. It was a plain black-leather box. Annie opened it, her cheeks flushing pink. There lay a beautiful black and silver pen. Annie tried to speak, but only sputters came out.

“It’s too much. I couldn’t…” 

“I lost the receipt,” a cheshire cat smile appearing on Jeff’s face, “so it looks like you’re going to have to keep it.” She feigned a deep sigh and hugged him around the waist.

He must not have been expecting it because he let out a little “oof”. In response, he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head. Today had been a rollercoaster. Annie started the day nervously quadruple checking everything before she left for Jeff’s. Jeff’s apartment was as lifeless as she expected it.

It looked like the leftovers of a roadside Holiday Inn. But Micheal sounded wonderful out of Jeff’s state-of-the-art sound system. Slowly, the strain relieved.

Annie Edison was in her element, and Operation Jeff’s-Christmas-Bonanza was coming together nicely. Every rollercoaster has a drop and Annie’s came when her phone rang. Annie hadn’t even looked at the display. She’d assumed it was Jeff complaining again about how he wanted to spend Christmas alone. On the other end had been Abigail Edison with her syrupy sweet voice. Annie almost hung up, but she thought she was stronger than she’d been two years ago.

Her stomach dove into free fall, but Annie Edison cowered from no one. She stood up to Jeff and Britta over the pen incident, so she could stand up to her mom. Annie’s courage barely lasted her two minutes and by the time her mother chirped “Happy Holidays” Annie was in silent tears. The Edisons never cared if their daughter was crying, but making noise was unacceptable. She’d just regained control over her breathing when the front door of Jeff’s apartment opened.

Annie wanted to hide her tears, but there was no place left to run. She didn’t know what she had expected from Jeff Winger when he found her crying, but comforting her was not at the top of her list. Then the rollercoaster started up again.

Hoping Jeff wouldn’t kill her for calling Doreen, and Annie didn’t even tell him that Doreen asked her out to lunch next week. The rollercoaster reached its apex again when Jeff gave her the pen. Her pen. It was by far the most beautiful thing she owned.

Part of her wanted to bury it at the back of her closet for safe keeping, but even more of her wanted to write everything and anything with it. Annie felt invincible. Jeff could have just thrown money at the problem and bought her candles. Instead, he invested in her. Jeff’s gift showed that he believed in her. Annie was light from happiness. But then she’d given Jeff her gift, and again Annie Edison was in free-fall. Her same stomach churning, her brain racing for ways to get out of this situation with some of her dignity intact.

Rather than shame her, Jeff thanked her. Now crushed against Jeff’s warm and solid chest, her breaths keeping time with his heartbeat. Annie Edison finally had her feet back on the ground. 

When asked later, neither of the two could remember or admit how long they stood silent and entwined. Annie was first to move when she remembers that there was desert. Baked Alaska in the shape of a Christmas tree.

When Jeff saw the dessert, his face got that cute exasperated that Annie associated with her getting what she wanted. “Annie, how many…” 

“Carbs don’t count on Christmas,” Annie said firmly. 

“As a soon-to-be hospital administrator, you know that’s not true.”

“As a soon-to-be hospital administrator, I am an expert and therefore I say no carbs on Christmas.” Her tone must have convinced him because he sauntered over. She portioned out the dessert and intentionally handed Jeff the bigger piece, who groaned, but took it anyway. They sat together on the couch and ate in silence, their knees only barley touching. Annie finished first. 

“I brought It’s A Wonderful Life,” she said, a huge sugar induced smile bouncing off her face. Without asking, Annie got up, pulled the DVD out of one box and moved over to the TV. Jeff helped by turning on the TV. The news was on and some state senator and his family. They’d caught him cheating on his wife while dressed as a slutty reindeer. He and his family looked stiff and miserable as he read his apology. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’d all prefer to have a quiet, intimate celebration, just the five of us, without any drama.”

Jeff quickly switched to station. Annie finished inserting the DVD and returned to the couch. She sat down, stretching her legs along the length of the couch and leaning back against Jeff’s body. Annie heard Jeff draw in a quick breath, but he didn’t push her away. Instead, without a word, Jeff wrapped an arm around her. Annie let out a soft sigh. 

“He never thinks about himself, God, that’s why he’s in trouble.” 


End file.
